


Like the sea

by itsthebat



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman - Fandom, Batman: The Animated Series, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, alfred is a proud grandpa, and very cute, bruce is a great dad, but its cute, dickie is nine years old, its a while after bruce makes dick his ward, this is a bit ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthebat/pseuds/itsthebat
Summary: Dick has a fever, and Bruce sings him a song.





	Like the sea

It was very late, and Bruce was very tired.

            He’d been out all night chasing criminals and stopping crooks and trying not to get himself killed in the process, but he’d also been distracted—Dick had a fever. Bruce usually knew how to separate things when he was working: when he was Batman, he could only think about the people he had to stop, about his _job_ ; he could think about that woman he’d promised to call but didn’t or about Wayne Enterprises when he was at home. But this time it was only Dick in his head.

            Dick had been living with him for three months now, and the boy surely lightened up the manor. Before Dick, it was only Alfred and Bruce, and Bruce wasn’t talkative, so it was all grim and quiet. But now that Dick was there and he had got used to being Bruce Wayne’s ward, it was as if he’d lived there all his life. He was always running around trying to discover every single room and slicing down the railings and doing acrobatics on the table of the living room. He was always asking questions, and he’d come to call Alfred _Alfie_ and Bruce _B_.

            When Bruce decided to make him his ward, he’d only been thinking about how the boy must feel, all alone and scared and seeking revenge, like he felt when his parents were shot in front of him. But instead of revenge, Dick sought _fun_. To be completely honest, Bruce hadn’t expected to care this much for the boy when he made the decision to make him his ward.

            And now Dick had a fever and he couldn’t freaking think of anything else and damn it, Alfred was _right_ , Bruce was like his father. Which was not a bad thing, but he was supposed to be a billionaire playboy, not a billionaire _dad_.

            Getting off his cowl, he sat at the computer and tried to focus on the photos and words and information he had in front of him, but it was as if his brain couldn’t take it anymore because Bruce couldn’t see clearly. The words were dancing in front of him and he couldn’t even differentiate who was who in the photos. When he looked at the clock, it was 5:34 am.

            _Bats sleep too, Master Bruce_ , always said Alfred, and Bruce supposed he was right. He would go and check how Dick was and then go to bed and sleep a few hours.

            And so he walked—stumbled—to Dick’s bedroom and opened the door as quietly as he could, and the first thing he saw was the _bed_. Alfred said that most kids liked to have a gigantic bed, but Bruce thought that this one was too big for a nine-year-old child. Plus, Dick was a circus boy. He was used to bunks, not king-sized beds. It took Bruce a while to find him every morning under all those blankets.

            “Dick?” he whispered, going in. There was a lamp on, and its light illuminated part of the room. Bruce remembered when he was eight and thought there was a monster inside his closet, when his mother would enter the closet every night to prove that there wasn’t anything in there, but would stay with him until he fell asleep anyways. “Are you awake?”

            There was no answer, so Bruce supposed that he was sleeping and the fever was gone, thank god. He got closer to the bed, wanting to see him. When he first made the decision, Bruce thought that Dick would be just one boy living with Alfred and him in the manor, but he’d become such an import person in his life, and it _scared_ him. A bit. Bruce wasn’t used to people caring about him—sure, magazines and some people were always talking about him and how great Bruce Wayne was, but it was because of his money. Not many people cared about him just because he was _Bruce_. And then there was Dick. This little kid who had lost so much but still had a lot to give.

            “I’m glad you’re okay, lad,” he said, although he knew Dick wasn’t hearing him. “And I’m glad Leslie wasn’t here—she would have freaked out.” That was true: Dick had already visited Leslie twice—one time because he had climbed a tree and fell, and another one because he didn’t tell Alfred he was allergic to berries and Alfred gave him berries.

            Bruce wasn’t confused when he didn’t see Dick’s head on the pillow because the kid liked to bury himself in blankets. He started to look for him under the covers, and… he wasn’t there. Closing his eyes, Bruce sighed; he was too tired for this.

            Dick was always sneaking out at night and going to sleep to other rooms because he wanted to see if all the beds felt the same. He told this to Bruce the second week. He said, “Do all the beds feel the same way?” and Bruce, still clueless about kids, answered that he didn’t know. Dick smiled really big and said, “I’m going to sleep in a different room _every_ night so I can see!”

            He hadn’t actually slept in a different room _every_ night, but sometimes when Bruce came home at night he went to see Dick and he wasn’t in his bedroom. If he wasn’t so tired he would have searched for him. But it was almost six am and he had almost been awake for twenty-four hours and even _he_ had to sleep. Dick was sleeping like the dead in some room, Bruce was sure.

            Or at least, he _thought_ he was sure about that, because when he opened the door of his own bedroom, the lights were on and there was a little nine-year-old sleeping in the middle of his massive bed. When Bruce entered, Dick opened an eye and yawned. Then he smiled, and Bruce didn’t even know what to say.

            This was the first time he’d seen Dick sleeping in his bedroom, and he didn’t know if he should be happy? Because he was pretty confused.

            “Hey,” he said, approaching him.

            “Mhmm,” mumbled Dick, rubbing his eyes.

            Bruce sat on the edge of the bed, and Dick wriggled closer to him. “Are you feeling better?”

            Dick nodded. Then he furrowed his brow, and Bruce was scared that he’d done something wrong, but Dick said, “Well, no. My head hurts.” Bruce was pretty sure that he was lying, because every time Dick told a lie, he wrinkled his nose. And he was wrinkling his nose right now. “Mom used to sing me a song when I was sick,” he mumbled, holding Bruce’s hand. “Can you sing me something?”

            “I don’t know how to sing,” Bruce answered.

            “Yes, you do. I heard you singing the other day. When Alfie and I were making lunch, you were on the sofa and you were singing.”

            Well, that wasn’t _completely_ true. Bruce had been listening to the radio and _La mer_ was on, and he had only been humming—his own mom used to sing him that song, but Bruce barely remembered the lyrics. And he still didn’t know how to sing, he was so bad at it. He’d tried to go to classes when he was young, but Bruce was helpless.

            “Please?” asked Dick, eyeing him. “And then I promise I’ll go to sleep.”

            Bruce sighed, but he was smiling too. “You promise?”

            Dick nodded fervently, and so Bruce started to sing. If Clark saw him now, Bruce was sure he would never let him forget this, because even though it’d been a while since the last time Bruce sang, he was as horrible at it as always. He was singing _La mer_ , because it was the only song that came to his mind right now, and he was out of tune and he didn’t even remember the whole song. Dick closed his eyes again, and Bruce didn’t stop singing until the song was over.

            By then, Dick was asleep again. He was using Bruce’s thigh as a pillow and had his hand clutched in his own little ones. He looked younger than he was, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile at his ward. His _son_. He was a father now, and silently he made a promise: he was going to be the best of dads, just like his own had been.

            Without making a sound, Bruce pushed him Dick to one side of the bed and covered him with the blankets. Then he lay beside him, turned off the lights and _finally_ closed his eyes.

            When Alfred came to wake him up in the morning, he couldn’t help but smile either, because Bruce was hugging Dick in his arms, and for the first time in a long time, Bruce looked _peaceful_. Like the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> The song is called La mer and sang by Charles Trenet. Is in French, but you should look up for the English translation, is very beautiful and fits the fic just perfectly! I hope you liked it!


End file.
